U.S. Poised For Passenger Rail Boom

Of planes, trains, and automobiles, only one can accommodate America's growing need for urban and intercity transportation, according to a panel of transportation officials who gathered in Chicago Wednesday.

Transportation officials from Chicago, Denver and Washington DC gathered at the headquarters of the Metropolitan Planning Council to discuss the need for "fun and functional transit centers." Underlying fun and function, however, was a common assumption that U.S. transit centers are about to become much more crowded.

"If you look at the current dominant modes of transportation—highways and aviation—they are capacity constrained, capital starved, and there is not much in the way of optimism about either of them," said Tom Downs, the Washington-based chairman of Paris-based Veolia Transportation.

"Your capacity seems to be pretty much unlimited for rail."

Downs led Amtrak from 1993-98 and served as executive director of the Federal Transit Administration, a White House fellow to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, president of New York’s Tri Boro Bridge and Tunnel Authority, director of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, among other roles.

"If you think about the business participation in passenger railroads, it's coming back. My suspicion is that it's going to come back very strongly."

Downs's comments were backed up by Luann Hamilton, deputy director of the Chicago Department of Transportation—who said Chicago estimates it will see a 40 percent increase in train traffic by 2040—and by Frank Cannon, president of Denver's Union Station Neighborhood Company, which is revitalizing Denver's historic train hub.

From the day Denver's light-rail system opened, Cannon said, it exceeded its 20-year ridership projections.

And railroads can accommodate dramatic increases in traffic more easily than highways or aviation.